Artificially Generated Colourful Empty Husk

(Stock photo by Aleksandar Pasaric)

 

This is hardly an unpopular opinion, nor an attempt to make any groundbreaking statement beyond putting some personal thoughts out there, but I honestly never got the appeal of AI generated so-called "art". 

With the most recent online trend of having AI generated images sort of resembling the art style of Studio Ghibli, beyond the words of Hayao Miyazaki himself, who had previously called similar technology "disgusting" in the past, with "I can't watch this stuff and find [it] interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted. If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all" being his exact quote, and the disrespect towards him this practice implies, I was also reminded of this quote by Guillermo del Toro, said during a conversation with the British Film Institute (during which he also interestingly enough mentions the work and influence of Miyazaki as well, full video here):

“I saw a demo of AI and I thought oh that's what people think animation is, giving prompts and the computer does it. You know, but AI has demonstrated that it can do semi-compelling screensavers. That's essentially that. The value of art is not how much it costs and how little effort it requires, it’s how much would you risk to be in its presence. How much would people pay for those screensavers? Are they going to make them cry because they lost a son? A mother? Because they misspent their youth? Fuck no!”

And OK, on a very shallow level, I maybe understand the idea of it. It's pretty (to the beholder), and the text is usually coherent, and the pictures show what you asked for on demand, and heck, sometimes they even have the right amount of fingers. But on the other hand, creating art takes some real work, and this is how people pay their bills, and even if you manage to totally ignore that, or the legal and ethical issues that arise, or the mere fact that this is not some revolutionary digital parthenogenesis that magically creates things out of thin air, but relies on taking thousands of hours of hard work, skill, pain, emotion, inspiration, practice and personal experiences, in the vast majority of cases without the creator's consent, putting them in a blender, and spitting out something that somewhat resembles the original, or the fact that it has contributed so heavily to the spread of disinformation, the way it has been used as a tool for online abuse and harassment in the form of revenge pornography, and the negative impact that it has been proven to have on the environment, my sentimental little brain still cannot fully get why would anyone be fascinated by something that nobody made.

During such discussions, though not specifically about AI, I'm also reminded of this quote by Ethan Hawke on TED, highlighting the importance of human creativity:

“Do you think human creativity matters? Well, most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, right? They have a life to live and they’re really not that concerned with Allen Ginsberg’s poems or anyone’s poems—until, their father dies; they go to a funeral; you lose a child; someone breaks your heart. And all of a sudden you’re desperate for making sense out of this life. ‘Has anybody felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?’ Or the inverse—something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes—you love them so much you can’t even see straight. You’re dizzy. ‘Did anybody feel like this before? What is happening to me?’ And that’s when art’s not a luxury—it’s actually sustenance. We need it.”

 I don't think it's a coincidence that both del Toro and Hawke talk about sadness, loss, and grief in connection to how important art is. I think the question "Did anybody feel like this before?" pretty much sums up my entire point. Because one of the biggest ways in which we find value in art, whether it's a song, a paragraph of text, a quote even, a photograph or a painting, it's in how it communicates that someone, somewhere, at some point in their life felt a certain way and sat down and expressed it in a manner that speaks to you, lets you process your own feelings, inspires you, and tells you that you are not alone in your joy or your sadness. That some stranger out there has felt that distinct kind of loneliness or thrill, and oddly understands that specific part of you, even if nobody else does.

Sure art comes in many forms, not all of them so serious. It's silly and funny, and sometimes flawed and nonsensical, but essentially it's a very human way to connect with another person who had something inside them to say, and to receive something out of it. And that's not something that can be replicated or mass produced. Whatever it is that AI creates, if you take the human factor out of the equation, it simply ceases to be art.